1. US laws and international laws on IT Accessibility Chapters 5 and 6

2. Introduction  Laws and lawsuits bring attention and enforcement to IT accessibility  Anti-discrimination laws addressing disability  Not just attitudinal, but there are physical barriers  Providing an accommodation or removing a barrier  What is an accommodation? Chairs? Windows?  What are the costs of the accommodations?  Reasonable accommodation? Fundamental alteration? Undue burden?

3. U.S. Disability Rights Laws  Often focus on the purchaser of technology, not the manufacturer of technology (developers and vendors generally have no direct liability for creating inaccessible products, only Title I accommodations as an employer)  From a US point of view, the legal requirements for accessibility fall on purchasers or licensors of technology  Technology changes more than physical settings (accessible bathrooms today won’t become inaccessible tomorrow)  Therefore, performance-based standards offer some benefits—”substantially equivalent ease of use”  Point of sale machines (Lucky Brand Jeans)

4. Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973  Prohibits the federal government, and recipients of federal funding, from denying participation in and the benefits of, or discriminating against people in any program or activity, solely on the basis of disability  A major law to prohibit discrimination, even if it doesn’t directly discuss technology  Title II of the ADA has similar reach over state government, even when no federal funding is present

5. Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act  Addresses technology in the federal government (when agencies are “developing, procuring, maintaining, and using electronic and information technology”  Covers both public-facing technology and technology for federal employees  Clear requirements, but enforcement has often been lacking  Data collection was lacking from 2003-2010  The 508 Refresh (since 2006…almost done!)

6. The Americans with Disabilities Act  Title I-Employment  Entities with more than 15 employees or those receiving federal funding  Must make reasonable accommodations, and not discriminate  Not allowed to use selection criteria that discriminate against PWD  Very little case law on this topic

7. The Americans with Disabilities Act  Title II-State and Local Government  Rulemaking process for web sites is now underway  Note: many states have state-level 508 laws that accomplish the same thing  Maryland’s IT Non Visual Access law has a strange exception

8. The Americans with Disabilities Act  Title III-Public Accommodations  12 categories of public accommodations  When the ADA was signed into law the Internet did not yet exist  Deval Patrick, Civil Rights Division AAG at US Justice Department, wrote in 1996, that covered entities under the ADA are required to make their web sites accessible

9. The Americans with Disabilities Act  Title III-Public Accommodations  NFB vs. Target (2006-2008)  Preliminary ruling: ADA applied to web site  Nexus to a physical location  California’s Unruh Act and Disabled Persons Act also applies, without regard to physical location  NAD v. Netflix  NFB vs. Scribd  Courts said in both cases that no physical location was required for ADA protections

10. Other US laws  Chafee Amendment to the Copyright Act, 1996, U.S. Copyright Act was amended so that it would not be copyright infringement for a nonprofit organization or government to make and distribute reading materials accessibility for people with print-related disabilities  Communications and Video Accessibility Act (2010)  State laws on IT accessibility  Air Carrier Access Act

11. International Disability Rights Law  Different approaches taken compared to the US  Civil rights approach (tiers of protection)  Human rights approach  Judicial decisions play a larger role in US, England, Canada, Australia, than in civil code countries (e.g. France)  Private lawsuits allowed in some (UK, Spain)  Government can enforce (Norway)  Province-level laws (Canada)  Transparency (Sweden)? Prescriptiveness (Germany)?

12. EU Mandate 376  European Union Mandate 376 (http://www.mandate376.eu/) requires procurement and development of accessible technologies by EU governmentshttp://www.mandate376.eu/  Prior to EU Mandate 376, many European countries, such as the UK, Italy, and Germany, and other countries around the world, including Australia and Canada, also had information technology accessibility requirements.  Harmonized with US Section 508

13. United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities  The CRPD, an international human rights treaty, also addresses accessible technology  Article 9 of the CRPD calls upon countries to “Promote access for persons with disabilities to new information and communications technologies and systems, including the Internet”  Article 21 encourages countries to “[provide] information intended for the general public to persons with disabilities in accessible formats and technologies appropriate to different kinds of disabilities”